Revision:Objectivity of mystical experience

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There are a number of ways in which mystical experiences might be tested or argued about. These amount to different standards by which they could be judged:

1. Verification - If they claim to be experiences of God (and not all mystical experiences do claim this), how could be verify this?
2. Meaningfulness - Is the language in which mystical experiences are described meaningful? The nature of the claimed experience itself might make it impossible to talk about it meaningfully. But if we can’t talk meaningfully about it then we can’t know what we mean to verify and therefore whether we can verify them.
3. Reductionism - Can mystical experiences be explained in terms of other experiences, and thus be reduced to them?

Verification

How do we know that a mystical experience is an experience of God? This is one application of a general argument about the verification of religious experience. There is a philosophical challenge to religious belief which appeals to mystical experience here, and also a religious response to that challenge offering specifically religious ways of verifying the “authenticity” of a mystical experience.

Philosophical challenges

Philosophical challenges on the verification of religious experience have come from philosophers of the empiricist tradition. Empiricism bases human knowledge on what has been observed through the five senses. Empiricist philosophers have focused on the private nature of a mystical experience and compared this unfavourably with the public nature of empirically verifiable claims.

Compare these two claims:

For empiricist philosophers such as David Hume, the difference between these two types of experience is that the first is verifiable and the second is not. I can back up my claim about the chair, show it to others, call in witnesses etc. The second is not at all verifiable in that way. Since you can’t access my private experience you have only my account of it to go on, and no way of checking whether or not I am mistaken. This provides a strong reason, they argue, for not believing that mystical experiences are experiences of anything beyond the experiencer’s own mind. (This accusation is not a problem for non-theistic mystics who don’t claim that it is anything other than their minds, but it is for theistic ones).

Religious responses

A.E. Taylor

Taylor appeals to the expertise of the theistic mystic. He argues that if we want to find the truth out about any subject, we should consult the experts in that subject. The theistic religious expert, whom we should trust on these matters, understands all experience in terms of the reality of God. If the mystical experience can best be understood in this way, then this should be accepted.

This raises difficulties firstly about whether a religious expert is like other kinds of expert, and also how we know who is an expert.

Martin Buber

Martin Buber, the Jewish existentialist philosopher, argues that any encounter with God is personal, and our judgement of it should be like our judgement of a person rather than an assessment of the existence of an object. He argues that no “justification” is required of religious experiences because they are unquestionably real in the same way that meeting a loved one is real. We should not confuse the standards used in science and those used in personal relationships, and religious experiences are more like the latter.

This argument might apply quite effectively to theistic mystical experiences, but will not be relevant to non-theistic ones where there is no experience of encountering a personal God.

Richard Swinburne

Swinburne claims that we should believe accounts of religious experiences, interpreted in the way they are interpreted by the experiencer, unless we have positive reasons to doubt them. This is his Principle of Testimony. He also argues in his Principle of Credulity, that we should believe that we perceive what we seem to perceive unless we have special reasons to believe otherwise. The doubt that can be cast on any religious experience is merely sceptical, Swinburne argues, consisting in doubt for the sake of doubt.

On these grounds Swinburne would claim that we should accept a mystic's claims about their experience unless there are special reasons for not doing so (e.g. they are mentally ill, known to be unreliable etc.)

Against Swinburne it could be objected that we do have positive reasons for rejecting any one set of claims about mystical experiences, namely that they could bear a completely different set of interpretations. If an experience is ambiguous (e.g. a person in a crowd looks like someone we know from behind, but it might not be) then we are justified in doubting any one interpretation of it.

St. Theresa of Avila

A response coming from a mystic herself is St Theresa's "protocol" for the genuineness of a mystical experience (in the context of Roman Catholicism). Theresa identified three conditions for the acceptability of a mystical experience:

1. The experience should be consistent with the teachings of the Church
2. The experience should be discussed with a spiritual guide, e.g. a confessor
3. There should be a positive change in the life of the person as a result of the change.

In this way Theresa subjected mystical experiences to tests of objectivity which were specifically religious. This also made sure that, unlike some other mystics, she remained orthodox and was not accused of heresy because of her mysticism. This is easier to do in the context of Roman Catholicism, where individual experience is always measured against Church teaching, than in denominations where individual experience is given more importance as a source of knowledge and judgement (e.g. the Quakers).

Assess these religious responses. Are they effective in justifying the belief that mystical experiences can be verified as coming from God?

Meaningfulness

Some thinkers have gone further and suggested that an ineffable mystical experience cannot be meaningful. The argument here is really quite simple:

1. Meaning only consists in what can be expressed in language.
2. Mystical experiences can either be expressed in language or not.
3. Ineffable experiences cannot be expressed in language.

Therefore:

• If mystical experiences are expressible in language, they are not ineffable.
• If they are not expressible in language, they are meaningless.

What does it mean here to say that a piece of language “means” an experience? A traditional answer in Western philosophy is that the experience and the language have to be isomorphic, that is, they have the same shape. My language tries to represent the world, or at least my experience of it, just as a map of Britain represents Britain. A map of Britain is not the same as Britain itself, but it has a special relationship with Britain itself that a map of France would not have because it is the same shape. In the same way the word “okapi” either means something to you or it doesn’t, because if it does it will match an idea in your mind of what an okapi is: it represents an okapi-experience. If you have no experience of an okapi (or even a picture or an explanation of one) then the word will be meaningless. The word “giraffe” does not represent an okapi, but the word “okapi” does. So language means experience when it represents it, and is meaningless when it does not.

The view of language which implies that mystical experiences were either expressible or meaningless was particularly expressed by the philosopher Wittgenstein, who famously wrote:

“Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we should remain silent.”1

In other words, mystics who try to speak about ineffable experiences should not try to do so, because they will not actually be speaking about what it is they really experienced. Wittgenstein is not denying that ineffable experiences may occur, just that it is possible to talk about them. He thought that the language of mystical experience has a social function (it plays a part in a “language-game”) but we should not pretend that it represents anything. Wittgenstein was impatient with philosophers and theologians who tried to break the proper bounds of language and make it do things he thought it could not really do.

Caroline Franks-Davis argued that mystical experiences were not ineffable because mystics do talk about them. They may be difficult to describe because they are such an unusual type of experience, but nevertheless they are a type of human experience and thus can be put into language.

Behind this is a dispute about language and its relationship with meaning. Mystics who claim their experiences are ineffable tend to assume that experience and language are distinct things. We first have an experience, and then we try to express that experience in language. An experience is “ineffable” if the language doesn’t properly represent the experience. Even our everyday experience may be “ineffable” if one takes this view: does the word “squirrel”, or even a poem about it, capture my experience of the bright liveliness of the animal I just saw scurrying up the tree?

Wittgenstein, Franks-Davis, and other modern philosophers and scholars, on the other hand, stress that our experience is itself formed by our conceptual scheme. If I don’t have a word of some sort for it (even a vague or general one), it won’t be meaningful for me, and won’t slot into the view of the world that I assemble as I experience. We view our experience through linguistic spectacles. Thus there’s no way I could talk about a mystical experience if it didn’t fit into that conceptual scheme, and if I do then it has.

Wittgenstein’s view has further implications for verification. If a mystic really can’t talk about their mystical experience, then it can’t be verified either. If they can talk about it, then it can only possible be verified within the conceptual scheme they are using. The mystical conceptual scheme may still be incompatible with that of science.

Mystical responses

There are various ways of trying to explain the ineffability of mystical experience.

Analogy

It can be claimed that in using language about mystical experience one is not representing what one actually experienced, but something else which is in some ways like it. For example, if a mystic says that they had an experience of joy, this will in some ways be like a normal experience of joy. One might feel joy at getting an all A’s in one’s exam results, but this worldly joy is only a bit like the joy of a mystical experience in certain respects, and doesn’t fully describe it at all. Similarly St. Theresa’s idea of mystical experience as a marriage between the soul and God is a bit like an ordinary marriage in some respects, but in others not at all like it.

Another way of understanding this might be to compare the use of words which only strictly apply to the experiences of one sense to another. E.g. think of a blue noise or a loud colour. Somebody who had been completely deaf from birth might not fully appreciate the analogy involved in the idea of a loud colour being like a loud noise, even though he/she would be able to use it. Similarly, although both those who have had mystical experiences and those who haven’t are able to talk about the features of mystical experience in analogous terms, those who haven’t can only really get a very limited idea of what might be meant.

Symbolism

Alternatively, mystical talk could be described as symbolic. Here, the symbol used which stands for the mystical experience is not necessarily like it in any way, it just stands for it and is associated with it. Often symbols arise from analogies, but they often then become independent of them. For example, the circle is a symbol of the unity of mystical experience, and flowers like the rose or the lotus have also been used as symbols of mystical experience. These visual symbols merely evoke mystical states for a mystic because of their associations, and perhaps talk about mystical states works in the same way.

Questions

1. If I see a squirrel, do the words “I see a squirrel” isomorphically represent the experience?
2. If not, is it also possible that “squirrel” is an analogy or a symbol for a squirrel?
3. If I have a mystical experience, do the words “I’m having a mystical experience” really represent that experience?
4. If not, does it help to think of the words as an analogy or a symbol?

Reductionism

If mystical experiences are not rejected as either unverifiable or meaningless, it is still possible to dismiss them, or claim they are “purely subjective” in other ways. This may be through psychological or physiological reductionism. In other words, an explanation may be found for mystical experiences in what are ultimately purely physical terms. This is a threat to mystical experience if you think such experience shows the non-physical nature of the mind or soul or that the experience is supernatural. It might also be seen as a threat to the “passive” or “authoritative” nature of the experience if it can be shown that it can be physically induced.

EEGs

One form of physical evidence about mystical experience is provided by electro-encephalographs or EEGs. The brain constantly emits faint electrical pulses which can be measured by EEGs in microvolts when a person is wired up with electrodes on their head. The regular fluctuations in these pulses can be called “brainwaves” and plotted on a graph. Four types of brainwave patterns have been identified, which seem to correspond to four types of mental state.

It is alpha waves which seem to show the physical correlation to a mental state which is concentrated and relaxed, not sleepy but aware, and internally rather than externally focused. 90% of people are said to produce Alpha waves regularly when they close their eyes and relax. It is high-amplitude alpha which seems to correlate to a highly concentrated meditative or mystical state. In such a state, the nervous system is also much more “deautomated”, that is, habitual ways of behaving are slowed down and subjected to awareness so that the experiencer is able to decide whether or not to follow them. Some people, who we might describe as mystics, enter this state readily without any training, whilst others respond readily to meditative training in order to do so.

This evidence certainly seems to explain why mystical experiences are a universal phenomenon, and also why they change people’s lives subsequently (deautomatisation of the nervous system enables old habits to be broken and new ones to be set up). They seem to be very inconclusive, however, if used to support reductionism. The fact that mystical experiences are associated with certain brain states does not show that they are not also religiously or spiritually significant, nor that they are not experiences of God (or of a state more receptive to God than normal). As Arthur Deikman, a leading researcher in this area, writes:

The content of the mystical experience reflects not only its unusual mode of consciousness but also the particular stimuli being processed through that mode. The mystical experience can be beatific, satanic, revelatory or psychotic, depending on the stimuli predominant in each case. Such an explanation says nothing conclusive about the source of “transcendent” stimuli.2

For more on EEGs, see Silent Music by William Johnston in the LRC.

Drugs and breathing techniques

Another possible source of reductionist claims is the resemblance between mystical experiences and drug-induced experiences. LSD in particular can induce states with many similar features to those of mystical experiences, such as a feeling of going beyond the ego, of bliss and peace, of entering a wordless sphere beyond ordinary experience, or of sublime unity. LSD can also induce visions of a heavenly or of a hellish kind, and can produce paranoia. Drugs of various types have been used in a variety of traditional religions and in Hinduism for thousands of years to induce both mystical and visionary states.

Similarly, at least some features of mystical states can be induced, either by ordinary meditation techniques involving relaxation and concentration, or by yogic breathing techniques which either involve hyperventilation (increasing oxygen supply in the bloodstream, which can induce ecstatic states), or slowed down breathing resulting in a lack of oxygen (stimulating the limbic system, which can also induce ecstatic and visionary states). All of these techniques have been practised for at least 2 –3000 years in India.

All this suggests that mystical states can be both produced and accounted for by changes in brain chemistry. Available drugs may be crude devices for attempting to induce mystical experience, but it can be judged probable that exactly the right quantities of the right chemicals dosed for the individual might in future be able to induce one with more exactness. However, as with electrical changes in brain activity, this does not prove either that these physically-induced states are not ones which are more receptive to God or to other kinds of religious truth, nor even that they may not themselves be experiences of God.

Perhaps, though, the idea of experience of God being induced by a drug can be seen as demeaning to God and out of step with Christian theology. One consistent feature of God in monotheistic belief is that he is not under human control in any sense.

Also if spiritual insight is found in such experiences, the experiencer may not be properly prepared to absorb it properly. Experts in religious mystical traditions tend to point out that many drug-induced mystical experiences are premature, and can thus be psychologically damaging in a way that those induced by meditation or encountered in contemplation are not. The mystic is prepared to go beyond the ego and be shaken out of his/her current view of things: the casual drug-user is not and can end up mentally ill instead.

Psychological explanations

A further type of reductionist argument is based on a correlation between prior psychological states and mystical experience. For example, some investigators have claimed to find a correlation between mystical experience and sexual frustration, claiming that it is more likely to occur to widows and to celibate monks and nuns, for example. Some mystics seem to lend themselves to this kind of explanation through using adapted sexual language to describe mystical ecstasy, like St. Theresa’s mystical marriage. However, even if there is a correlation here it might only show that mystics have sublimated sexual energy, turning it into more subtle forms, rather than that mystical experience can be reduced to a sexual explanation.

There are also some similarities between some mystical experiences and the symptoms of some mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or dementia. However, the difference appears to be the relatively objective standpoint from which the mystic can subsequently view and describe their experience, whereas mental illness usually involves a loss of objectivity and control over one’s life. Far from being mentally ill, mystics have often appeared to be healed by their experiences.

Do these physical and psychological explanations of mystical experiences make it more likely that they are “merely subjective”?

Further reading (in the LRC)

• Moojan Momen The Phenomenon of Religion ch.7
• Geoffrey Parrinder Mysticism in the World’s Religions
• William James The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 16 & 17

Comments

These notes are aimed at A Level Religious Studies students for the module 'RS12: Studies in Religion and Human Experience'.

Originally written by Metro_gnome on TSR Forums.